A solution to identifying the origin of immigrants who cannot or will not say who they are

Robert Henderson

One of the difficulties experienced by those enforcing Britain’s immigration controls (and the controls of any advanced country)  is the problem posed by immigrants whose origin is unknown . This may be because  the immigrant does not speak English or any other widely used language or they wish to disguise where they come from, most commonly because they are illegal immigrants, by refusing to give any information about their origins. (The deliberate destruction by immigrants of  documents which could identify them and their origins is commonplace ). There are also frequent claims by immigrants to come from somewhere other than their  actual place of origin.  The upshot of all this is that many immigrants who  would be deported in principle cannot be deported because there is no way of being certain where they come from in most cases.

What is needed is a cheap, efficient  and fast way of identifying from where  immigrants  come.   How do we find that?  By  considering what language, dialect and accent says about an individual.  The way a person speaks tells you a great deal about their origins.  It will tell you  not only which country they come from, but which part of the country because of the differences in accent and dialect. (The Received Pronunciation  (RP form of English commonly used by the better off in England has no regional identifier but is probably unique in being an accent of a class rather than a place or region).  It will also give pointers to their social status  through such things as the vocabulary and  syntax they use.  An  educated person may speak with a more standardised as well as a  more extensive  vocabulary than the person with no more than an elementary education or no formal education at all.

For the vast majority of people the way they speak is set sometime in childhood. Children are flexible in their accents until the age of eleven or twelve. After that the accent normally becomes fixed. This means that if a person as an adult speaks with a certain accent it is very probable that they will have spent all or much of their formative years in the place where they acquired the accent.

Someone who was raised in the same community, be it village, town or city,  as someone whose place of origin is unknown should be able to readily identify the person’s origins.   Those coming from the same general region as someone of unknown origin  would probably be able to place the person as coming from the region, although they might not know  from exactly where. For example, a person living in Birmingham  might  not be able to distinguish between a Lancastrian and a Yorkshireman,  but they would know they were English and from the north. Move to the arena of a  nation of state of some size and the ability to pin down the exact origin will weaken further,  but people will still, in the overwhelming majority of  cases, be able to know whether a person is of the same nationality as they are, although  there will always be points of confusion where national boundaries have changed, for example,  those of Alsace-Lorraine,  nation states have swallowed ethnically different states, for example, China and Tibet, or there are enclaves of long established ethnic difference within a state, for example, the Basques.  Obviously , the size of both the territory and population within a nation state will put a limit to how far identification of fellow nationals by speech  can be carried.  However, that is not a great hurdle for our purposes. Taking my own experience as a British citizen raised in England as an example, I would have no difficulty recognising those raised in this country  and could place almost all  within specific regions (the only  people I might possibly confuse would be some Scottish accents with some Northern Irish ones, but even there I would still have them placed within British territory).

The problem with identifying people whose origins are unknown from their speech  is the lack of information about their speech.  No country is going to have a sufficient supply of natives from all parts of the world to even begin to identify  the variety of people of unknown origin with which  immigration authorities in the developed world have to deal.   What is needed is a substitute for such human witnesses. This could be achieved by developing a computer program which would do the job instead.

Such a program  would require a database of  voices from as many places as  possible in the world.  The database would  contain examples of speech from particular places.  The samples of speech on the database would need to be drawn from across the social spectrum from the population  of the place.   The speech of someone of unknown or of suspected false claimed origin could then be run against the database to search for a match.

The proposal would not seem to be beyond  current IT technical skills. All that would be required is a program to compare sounds and words against the database.  The general capacity and speed of modern computers  should make storage of the database information and the running of the program to compare data with the data base simple enough. Millions of  examples of speech from different places and classes  could be held on the database  – databases of such a size with efficient search functions already exist, for example, the  UK police computer already holds several million records including DNA and fingerprints.   There is, consequently,  a realistic prospect of   creating a system using existing technology,which would allow examples of  speech from almost every place on Earth to be  stored and compared with other examples of speech.   The database  examples  could be culled from existing recordings where the origins of the speakers are known or through the interviewing of people whose origins are known.

Apart from identifying those who cannot or will not reveal  any identity or origin to the immigration authorities,  such a system could also be used to test the stories of those who give an identity which is false or those who give their correct name  and country but claim a false place of exact origin, for example, a town or village.  An asylum seeker might correctly claim they came from Nigeria but give the wrong state or tribal group because they have done something criminal in their real place of origin.   The program could reveal the lie.

The utility of the programme would go beyond the identification of people  of unknown national origin for immigration purposes. For example, those who claim they cannot speak English and use a language which is not readily identifiable to be identified make criminal investigations related to them effectively impossible.   Such a program would  identify some , probably most, of them and once identified  interpreters could be brought in and an investigation of the alleged crime begun.

Let me stress that what I am suggesting is not a machine for translating what someone says, merely identifying the language they are speaking and the place where they were raised. However, the use of machine translations of voices is progressing and that is also worth investigating, although at present the translations are nowhere good enough to substitute for a human interpreter. When machine recognition of voices and translation becomes trustworthy both to and from the person requiring a translator,  it should in principle be possible to do away with much of the need for human interpreters.

The abolition of the GCSE and the return of O Levels

Robert Henderson

The Coalition’s Education Secretary Michael Gove has signalled his  intention to return the English examination system to something approximating to the O Level examination Gove proposes :

That GCSEs will ‘disappear’ from schools within the next few years

The National Curriculum in secondary schools will be abolished

The requirement that pupils obtain five good GCSEs graded A* to C will be scrapped

Less intelligent pupils will sit simpler exams, similar to the old CSEs

O-level pupils will sit the same gold standard paper nationwide from a single exam board

(http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2162369/Michael-Gove-plans-scrap-dumbed-GCSEs-bring-O-Levels.html).

It is also implicit in the idea of returning to O Levels that coursework will be ended , the  exam grade will be determined solely on the basis of an end-of-course  (synoptic) exam  and a return to norm referencing rather than criterion referencing in the grading.  Criterion referencing allows any number of those taking an exam to achieve a particular grade. That opens the door to grade inflation.

Norm referencing means that within very narrow limits, one or two percentage points, the same percentage of those sitting the exam each year receive the same grades, for example there is a target  8% of those taking the exam to achieve an A. It might be raised to 9% in a strong year or reduced to 7% in a weak year.  This marking system would kill grade inflation at a stroke. It would also eliminate  variations in the difficulty of individual questions and of whole papers because it would not matter whether a particular year’s exam was harder or easier than the year before because the same proportion, more or less, of those taking the exam would achieve a particular grade each year. That would give a stable hierarchy of ability over time, something which would be of great assistance to employers and academics in higher education because they would know that a  particular grade indicated a consistent level of ability.

Gove’s proposals have  produced predictable squeals of outrage from the politically correct educational establishment and their political allies with much talk of “two tier systems” and “returning to the educational dark ages”, the latter  accompanied by a piece of moron’s logic that  if something has been discarded in the past it must by definition be  inferior to anything which replaces it.

O Levels were scrapped for English state schools in 1987 because they were supposedly both too narrow and relied overly on memory and the regurgitation of facts  and socially divisive because only a minority of pupils  could pass them  with the rest either left with no qualifications or those of  the easier Certificate of Secondary Education (CSE) , which was also ended when GCSEs were introduced.   More on these points later.

The CSE  carried the possibility of being considered equivalent to an O Level, viz:

“There were five pass grades in its grading system ranging from grades 1 to 5, with grades 2 to 3 being recognised with equivalence to the three (later two: D and E) lowest O-Level pass grades (of which there were originally six, later five, A, B, C, D and E).

Achieving CSE grade 1 was equivalent to achieving an O level in the subject where the student may have reasonably gained an A, B or C grade had they taken an O-level course of study in the same subject.”  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Certificate_of_Secondary_Education#cite_ref-1).

The GCSE was  built upon dishonesty from the start . It purports to be a single exam when it is several exams of differing difficulty  under the same head, viz:

” Tiers

In many subjects, there are two different ‘tiers’ of examination offered:

Higher, where students can achieve grades A*–E, or a U

Foundation, where they can achieve grades C–G, or a U[3]

If a candidate fails to obtain a Grade G on the Foundation tier or a Grade D on the Higher tier they will fail the course and receive a U. Candidates who narrowly miss a Grade D on the Higher tier, however, are awarded a Grade E. In modular subjects, students may mix and match tiers between units. In non-tiered subjects, such as History, the examination paper allows candidates to achieve any grade. Coursework and controlled assessment also always allows candidates to achieve any grade.

In 2006, GCSE Mathematics changed from a 3-tier system — Foundation grades (D–G), Intermediate (grades B–E) and Higher (grades A*–C) — to the standard 2-tier system described above.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Certificate_of_Secondary_Education#Tiers and http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/educationandlearning/qualificationsexplained/dg_10039024).

The original GCSE was in reality the O Level and the CSE pushed under one heading with the Higher Tier equating to  the  O Level and the Foundation Tier to the CSE.  The main departure from the O Level/CSE regime was coursework  counting to the final grade .  An especially  pernicious aspect of  the sham of pretending  GCSE is one exam is that those taking tiers of different difficulty can obtain the same grade in ostensibly the same exams.  This means  GCSEs are next to useless as guides  for employers or  academics in higher education, because the person deciding to employ  or accept someone on a course could be faced with two applicants with the same grade who have achieved it by doing different  coursework and answering different exam, questions.

The GCSE waters have been muddied considerably since its inception. To the initial division  arising from the different  tiers has since been added  the Business & Technology Education Council Diploma known as BTech  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BTEC_First_Diploma) which is vocational and rated at the equivalent of 4 GCSEs grades A-C and the  Entry Level Certificate which is rated  below the GCSE and offers a range of vocational and academic subjects (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entry_Level_Certificate ).   This means that at present we have at least  four different school qualifications masquerading as one.  To grasp fully the  absurd complexity of the present system of  sub-university qualifications now available in England see (http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/EducationAndLearning/QualificationsExplained/DG_10039017).

That England has arrived at a situation where multiple qualifications masquerade as one qualification is unsurprising.  It  is impossible to devise an exam which the entirety or even the vast majority of schoolchildren can pass because of the great differences in intellectual ability and inclination to study.  Ironically,  even the GCSE  taken at its own face value, that is as a single unified exam, does not fulfil this function. Despite  the fudging  of  the exam by providing different levels of difficulty and content, widespread plagiarism in the course work, modules which can  be re-sat over and over again, cheating by teachers and  remorseless grade inflation by examining boards competing for business, less than 60% of English schoolchildren in 2010/11 got 5 GCSEs at grades A-C  or their equivalent (http://www.education.gov.uk/cgi-bin/rsgateway/search.pl?keyw=066&q2=Search).

The reality of GCSE is that it is as educationally (and socially) divisive as the old O Level/CSE regime with the added disadvantage that not only are children still divided by attainment, the value of  the exam compared with the O Level is widely perceived – particularly amongst employers – as being much less.  If you passed O levels with decent grades it was generally taken as an assurance of quality.  GCSEs, with their ever soaring grades including a new starred A grade because so many As were being given, tales of teachers manipulating (to put it politely) the work of their pupils to ensure reasonable grades, regular reports of [plagiarism by the pupils  and employers complaining about school-leavers who are barely literate are seen increasingly as academically  dubious . The social divide is still massive. Children from fee-paying and selective state schools substantially  out perform those in comprehensives and those from poor homes do startlingly badly compared with those from well-to-do families ( http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/sep/03/social-class-achievement-school).  The division between the fee-paying and state schools is being further widened because many fee-paying schools  have already moved from the GCSE to the International GCSE (IGCSE) because the IGSC has many features of the O Level (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/7962556/GCSE-results-private-schools-adopt-O-levels.html).

The reality of our present system is that it merely pretends that children generally  can undertake and benefit from  the same  education.  Along with that sham come the ills of  plagiarism, grade inflation and  a failure to produce adults who are reasonably literate and numerate and possessed of a decent store of facts across a wide range of subjects. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/may/12/english-maths-gcse-extra-study). Perhaps worst of all  the current system often inflates a child’s assessment of their own capacity. If someone gains , say, eight  As at GCSE, they will bewildered if they find their ostensible GCSE successes are a poor preparation for A Levels .

A return to O Level would not produce a perfect school world. Divisions based on innate intellectual and socially acquired  differences would  continue to exist and people would  be formally categorised as academic sheep and goats.  But does anyone honestly believe that children taking GCSE do not understand that they are being divided into sheep and goats through the various tiers in the examination or the  BTECH and the Entry Level certificate?

What a return to O Levels would  do is restore confidence in the school exam taken at 16, provide a reliable standard  by which to judge a person’s general ability and   a raise standards by ending plagiarism and the collusion between  teachers and pupils  to either cheat outright or stretch the rules to the point where most people would call it cheating even if the rules are not technically breached, for example, by a teacher  virtually re-writing a poor piece of coursework by giving extensive suggestions to the pupil.

If O Levels are reinstated they would have the beneficial knock-on effect of improving academic work beyond 16.  Universities are complaining about students arriving unfit to undertake degree courses because A Levels do not prepare them for the demands of a university (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/secondaryeducation/8505962/Schools-fail-to-get-spoonfed-pupils-ready-for-university.html).This is a consequence of A Levels  having their  demands rduced because pupils who have taken GCSE start their A Level courses ill equipped for that qualification’s demands.  If O Levels are truly reinstated that will allow A Levels to become more rigorous and this in turn will send students to university better equipped for degree courses.

But  practical measures such as  end-of-course exams and the abolition of coursework would not be sufficient in itself to revive  English school examinations. It is  also the hostility to facts which makes the GCSE a flawed educational tool.  The new O Level should return facts to their necessary place which is the foundation of  understanding .  The complaint that O Levels  relied too much on the memorising of facts is mistaken for two reasons. First, the regurgitation of facts in Gradgrind fashion would not have got an O Level candidate very far, especially in the humanities, which routinely asked those sitting the exam not only to provide facts but also to analyse and interpret. Second, the acquisition of knowledge is of itself essential to a deep understanding to any academic subject. Anyone who has ever acquired a deep knowledge of anything (not just academic subjects) will have had the experience of,  without consciously trying, making connections and gaining insights which were utterly beyond them even when their knowledge had reached significant level. It is what I call the intelligence of erudition – see (https://livinginamadhouse.wordpress.com/2010/11/09/the-intelligence-of-erudition/).   The value of a detailed knowledge of a subject also sabotages the objection that O Levels were too narrow. Knowing a little about many subjects is never going to be as valuable as knowing  much about a few subjects.

A word of warning .  If it is  intended to return to the O Levels as they were originally constructed, all well and good.  However, I doubt whether this is what is intended . I took my O Levels in the early 1960s when they were still pristine. Sciences were tested individually and each had separate practical exams. Essays were required for most questions in the humanities, extended written answers in the sciences  and multiple choice questions was unknown. There was no course work or modular exams and  the entire subject was tested at the end of the course. By 1970 the practical science exams had gone and multiple choice had begun to infect some subjects.  When they were scrapped in the 1980s they were a shadow of their original selves with large amounts of multiple choice questions.   If Gove merely wishes to return to 1987 that would be better than nothing but far from the best which could be done.

Gove’s proposals are generally sensible, not least the setting up a single examination board to prevent examination boards competing for customers by lowering standards.  Such an  examination board should be a not-for-profit organisation to remove the profit motive entirely from the process of setting and marking exams. What does concern me is the idea that the new O Level would be suitable for 75% of children – this is the clear implication of the intention that 25% of schoolchildren will  take the new CSE. It is simply impossible to produce an exam which caters for three quarters of children for the same reasons that an exam cannot cater for all children, namely, the differences in innate intellect and social circumstances are simply too great to permit it.  Even in its last decade O Level was meant for at most the top third of pupils ( (http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1981/mar/10/o-level-mathematics).  The danger is that the  new O Level, if it is to truly be a single exam without the fudging found in the GCSE, will have to be made simple enough for the less able pupils in the top 75% to successfully sit the exams.  That would produce an exam which  was less rigorous than the GCSE Higher Tier examination.

Whatever exact form they  will take, Gove’s new exams are unlikely to become reality while the Coalition exists. Nick Clegg has said it will not take place while the LibDems are in the Coalition. This means that they are unlikely to see the light of day for several years and only then if the Tories return with a working majority at the next election, something which does not look likely at present. Gove’s ideas are best seen as aspirations rather than practical politics.

Courage is the best defence against charges of racism

Robert Henderson

The trial of Emma West on two racially aggravated public order charges which was scheduled for 11 June has been postponed until 16 July to enable further psychiatric reports to be prepared. (http://www.thisiscroydontoday.co.uk/Emma-West-race-rant-trial-moved-July/story-16346869-detail/story.html).

As Miss West was charged over six months ago and has been  brought before courts several times,  it does seem rather strange that psychiatric reports need to be prepared now, especially as it was made clear months ago that she was being treated for depression when the events took place and had taken a double dose of her normal medication on the day of the alleged offences, both of which were of obvious utility as defences or mitigation. If they were going to be used by the defence surely psychiatric reports would have been made long ago. Had Miss West suddenly decided to plead guilty that could explain it, but there is no evidence that she has changed her plea. Perhaps the answer lies in the fact that she  has stood firm on her intention to plead not guilty That would make her a decidedly rare bird amongst those who have found themselves arraigned in Britain on criminal charges merely for expressing non-pc views about mass immigration and its effects in general or for challenging the politically correct elite ideology in a particular instance where they have become embroiled in a dispute with someone who is black, Asian or a white person who claims ethnic minority status. Such a plea would also be a most unwelcome development for those who have brought her to trial.

The British liberal elite relies on fear to drive the enforcement of their totalitarian doctrine of political correctness, of which multiculturalism and “anti-racism” form the central part. The political elite – backed and aided by their auxiliaries in the mainstream media, public service, academia and the ethnic minorities themselves,  with big business tagging along provided the globalist and laissez faire tune is played by the politicians  – create and feed on that fear in various ways. They pass laws which make employers vulnerable to claims of racial and sexual discrimination; make the loss of a job, especially in publicly funded jobs, commonplace for those judged to have committed a politically incorrect “crime!” and criminalise dissent from those in the native British population who repudiate the idea of mass immigration as a good and lament the willful tainting of what was until the 1950s a remarkably homogenous population.

The political elite and their auxiliaries have been very successful to date in controlling dissent both through the creation of fear and the willing collusion of the mainstream media who happily accept the restrictions of Acts such as the Race Relations Act (9176), the 1986 Public Order Act and the Race Relations Amendment Act (2000) whilst proclaiming their belief in free expression. But the trick, like all acts of censorship and propaganda, only works while alternative views are excluded from the public fold.

What every liberal knows in his or her heart of hearts is that the creed they supposedly live by is no more than an aspiration and the reality of the time they live in is that human beings generally do not wish to live according to the dictates of political correctness and, most particularly, are naturally antagonistic to the idea that homo sapiens is just one big happy species without any meaningful innate or ineradicable cultural differentiation.  This means that any breach in the public censorship of politically incorrect ideas represents a potent danger for the British elite. They realize that if the truth is told about both the consequences of  mass immigration and the feelings of the native British towards it, the pack of ideological cards will tumble down, just as it did in the Soviet Union where the discontinuity between the political rhetoric of a communist paradise with equality, bumper harvests and every increasing industrial production contrasted fantastically with the miserable material lives of the Soviet masses and the brutal repression and ever more absurd Marxist-Leninist dogma.  In the case of the liberal regime in Britain, the equivalent absurdities are the liberal’s insistence that mass immigration had been a most wondrous boon bringing huge economic benefits and marvelous cultural enrichment while the large majority of the native population saw, often at first hand, the reality of the “cultural enrichment” as areas were effectively colonized, crime, especially violent crime, committed on an industrial scale by immigrants and their descendants, traditional British freedoms rapidly eroded in the name of multiculturalism and protest against the effects of immigration criminalized.

The elite fear of the public contradiction of the politically correct narrative on race and immigration  may have caused the postponement of Emma West’s trial to either prepare the ground to get her to change her plea to guilty or have her declared unfit to plead, the latter being the ideal result for the authorities because it would allow her to be represented as mad. This would fit beautifully with the liberal idea that only the mentally ill can hold non-pc views.

Until the last few years there have not been many prosecutions for inciting racial hatred or allied crimes. Instead, the British elite have relied on visits by the police to people who have had the temerity to put golliwogs on sale in their shop or make some mildly non-pc comment which has got into the media. It is very rare that charges have been brought, not least because the “crimes” they are supposedly investigating are often difficult to identify under existing laws. But an eagerly complicit British media has made sure that such action by the police is given great publicity.  This has laid the foundation for the general fear now present amongst the native British of voicing or even being associated with someone who voices a politically incorrect opinion, a fear symbolized by the almost inevitable “I’m not a racist” disclaimer when someone ventures to express mild concern about immigration or the behavior of a particular ethnic minority or even, because the “anti-racism” disease has become hideously virulent, a criticism of any person drawn from a pc protected group.

In the past few years more and more cases have ended up in court, two of the most recent being the jailing for 21 weeks of Jacqueline Woodhouse for behavior similar to that of Miss West and the Swansea U student Liam Stacey, who was jailed for 56 days after making comments deemed to be racist on Twitter (http://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2012/05/31/prison-for-merely-speakingnon-custodial-sentences-for-sustained-physical-attacks/). Both played the liberal game of Maoist-style confession which did them no good at all.

Sadly, very few native Britons in the past forty years have pleaded not guilty when charged with racially based offences. They have allowed themselves to be either intimidated into pleading guilty or on the rare occasions when a not guilty plea has been entered, gone along at their lawyers’ insistence with either a technical defence, for example, claims that they were wrongly charged or the evidence used was inadmissible , or a defence which does not say they had the democratic right to say or write whatever it was they said or wrote, but only challenges the charges on the grounds of what the words meant in the context of the law, for example, in the case of charges under section 5 of the 1986 Public Order Act were the words insulting, viz:

(1)A person is guilty of an offence if he— .

(a)uses towards another person threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or .

(b)distributes or displays to another person any writing, sign or other visible representation which is threatening, abusive or insulting, .

with intent to cause that person to believe that immediate unlawful violence will be used against him or another by any person, or to provoke the immediate use of unlawful violence by that person or another, or whereby that person is likely to believe that such violence will be used or it is likely that such violence will be provoked. (http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1986/64).

The liberal elite fear anyone who pleads not guilty, even if it is on grounds, such as those just described, which do not challenge  directly the basis of the multicultural fantasy. This is because any contested trial brings into the public fold a dissenting voice and , consequently,  demonstrates  that the law is being used in a way which is incompatible with either a free society or a democracy, because it is inherent in the concepts of both a free society and a democracy that any opinion must be allowed to be argued or by definition the society is neither free nor a democracy.

If someone charged with politically correct “crimes” puts forward a defence that the laws under which they are charged are illegitimate because the laws are tyrannical and destructive of both freedom and democratic participation, the problem for the liberal elite is much amplified because it nakedly reveals their hypocrisy. Whilst happily using and tolerating the use of power appropriate only for a totalitarian state,  the official liberal line is that they are the most wonderfully moral and tolerant people in the world who find any form of discrimination or imposition of values obnoxious. Any person who wished to mount a forthright defence on the grounds of free expression and democratic participation would be  crying that the Emperor had no clothes.

The other very damaging possibility(for liberals) would be if a defendant argued that a failure to apply the law regarding racial incitement, threat, insult and so on equally rendered the law both morally null and legally incomprehensible, because it was literally impossible for any individual to judge what was and what was not illegal.  This would be very simple to do because there are many glaring examples of blacks engaging in racist abuse of whites not being judged to have committed racist crimes – two prime examples can be found in http://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2012/05/31/prison-for-merely-speakingnon-custodial-sentences-for-sustained-physical-attacks/.

To these instances of double standards  can be added the vast numbers of incitements to racial hatred against the native white population of Britain by politicians, the mainstream media, academics and ethnic minority spokesmen who insist that Britain is a racist society because its native white population is racist. These not only attract no attention from the police but no condemnation by politicians or the mainstream media. ( I referred Greg Dyke when Director-General of the BBC to Scotland Yard  after he referred to the BBC staff as “hideously white”, a clear incitement to hatred against whites and especially potent because of his public position. Scotland Yard refused to open an investigation).

This brings us back to the question of why Emma West has been referred for psychiatric reports. The authorities have already done their best to intimidate her. After Miss West’s arrest she was held on remand “for her own protection” according to the court in Bronzefield Prison, the nearest to a high security Category A prison in England, a prison which has housed amongst others the mass murderess Rosemary West. They did this despite the facts that  (1) she made no request for protection nor was any firm evidence of serious threats to her safety produced.and (2) she has a three year old son to look after. (http://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2011/12/07/emma-west-immigration-and-the-liberal-totalitarian-state-part-2/)

Despite these intimidating experiences and the danger that her son may be taken from her by social services, Miss West still appears to want to plead not guilty. If she is resolute in that, her best way of winning her case or, quite possibly ,having the case dropped before it comes to court , is to fight the charges on the  grounds that they are an affront to free expression and democracy.  Miss West should also add the double standards in applying the law to the embarrassment she can cause the liberal elite. If she relies on a defence or mitigation based on her history of depression or the medication she took, it is unlikely to save her from conviction or provide much by way of mitigation because she has pleaded not guilty. There would be every chance she would go to prison and/or lose custody of her son.

What I recommend to Miss West is good advice to anyone who is arrested for a “racial crime”.  Make it clear from the moment you are approached by the police that you will plead not guilty on the grounds that free expression is a necessity in a free society and to engage in the democratic process.  There is a fair chance they will not even caution you, let alone try to bring you to court because the last thing the British political elite want are large numbers of trials with the defendants pointing out that the liberal emperor has no clothes.

Easy to say, difficult to do  I can hear people saying.. That is true. Being brave in such circumstances is deeply difficult, even for those  in political parties which have some public profile and base their politics on politically incorrect ideas of race and immigration.  In 2005 the leader of the BNP Nick Griffin emailed me to ask whether I would appear as a witness in a court case in which he was appearing as a defendant to charges of .  I had never met, spoken to or exchanged emails or letters with the man before his email arrived, nor had any dealings with him after our 2005 exchange of emails.

Griffin contacted me because Tony and Cherie Blair, quite bizarrely, attempted to have me prosecuted, and failed dismally, under the Malicious Communications Act during the 1997 General Election. Those interested in the case can find a summary at https://livinginamadhouse.wordpress.com/2010/10/26/when-tony-and-cherie-blair-tried-to-have-me-jailed/. He wanted me to give evidence which showed political tampering with the justice system.  This I agreed to do because Griffin was “the subject of both a  political law and a political prosecution.” . I wrote a detailed note which both laid out what evidence I could bring and my advice about how he could best run his defence.  Griffin accepted this then did precisely what I had warned him against doing, namely, letting his lawyers run a defence which did not defend the principle of free expression. Griffin was found not guilty but that verdict left him with a problem he cannot shake off. By allowing the defence he did, he tacitly accepted the legitimacy of the laws under which he was charged. I include the relevant exchange of emails with Griffin at the end of this article.

If the leader of a political party with enough support to justify the odd media appearance cannot be brave, why should the ordinary person be brave?  If the arguments about the value of free expression do not convince, consider the fate of  those who have been brought before courts in recent times. Jacqueline Woodhouse and Liam Stacey pleaded guilty and made the most abject public apologies. It did not save them.  They were both sent to prison for merely speaking in a country where burglars commonly do not receive a prison sentence  until their third or fourth conviction and violent assaults by blacks on whites receive community service, for example, . http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2070562/Muslim-girl-gang-kicked-Rhea-Page-head-yelling-kill-white-slag-FREED.html#ixzz1flw8TY6p.

Nor will the effects of meekly pleading guilty be over after your court appearance is done and your sentence served.  You will probably lose your job and find it difficult to get another one.  If you are in higher education you will probably be excluded from the university, either temporarily or permanently.  Even if you do complete your course, your job prospects will be blighted because prospective employers will have somewhere in their minds a memory of your trial and the publicity surrounding it. Depending on your social circumstances, you may find yourself socially ostracized if you are middle class or be an object of fear to anyone because you will carry the label “racist” around with you and that will make you seem dangerous to most people regardless of their private views on race and immigration. In short, pleading guilty is never going to be an easy way out.   At worst, if you are going to pick up a criminal record and possibly a prison sentence, you can  keep your self-respect intact by fighting the case on the grounds of freedom of expression and the right to tell the truth about the most profound act of treason, the permitting of mass immigration.

——————————————————————-

My correspondence with Nick Griffin  

To:                      Philip@anywhere.demon.co.uk

Subject:              a crack at Blair?

From:                  BNP Chairman

Date:     19 June 2005 21:24:02

Dear Mr Henderson

It occurs to me that there’s just an outside chance that something you have on Blair and his cronies (and/or the BBC) might just be able to be worked in to my defence against Race Act prosecution in Leeds Crown Court later this year.

The problem, of course, is making a connection so that the judge would rule such material relevant and admissable, but if you have anything that you think could possibly fit the bill, and which you would like to see given a very public airing in full view of the national media, then please drop me an email at your convenience.

Yours sincerely

Nick Griffin

British National Party

————————————————————-

To:                      BNP Chairman

Subject:              Re: a crack at Blair?

From:                  Robert Henderson <philip@anywhere.demon.co.uk>

Date:     21 June 2005 13:45:35

OK. Just answer me one question for the moment. Do you want to frighten Blair and co into dropping the prosecution or do you positively want the case to go ahead so you can use it as a political platform? I

don’t care which it is but I would need to know before we go any further.

RH

———————————————–

To:                      Robert Henderson <philip@anywhere.demon.co.uk>

Subject:              Re: a crack at Blair?

From:                  BNP Chairman

Date:                   21 June 2005 15:58:02

Option a) would be marginally better because then we can always get a bite of cherry b) at a later date by going head-to-head with their proposed Islamophile ‘law’.

N

—————————————————————-

To:                      BNP Chairman

Subject:              Suggested action you should take

From:                  Robert Henderson <philip@anywhere.demon.co.uk>

Date:     04 July 2005 17:11:57

Dear Mr Griffin,

I have had a good think about your request. In principle I am willing to help you and those being prosecuted with you. I do this simply because you are the subject of both a political law and a political prosecution. However, I must insist on one thing: that you all are entirely honest with me.

You say you ideally wish to frighten Blair and co out of the prosecution. What I am going to suggest will both serve that purpose and also provide a good skeleton for your defence if you get to court.

Your tactics

I suggest the following:

1. Call the Attorney-General Lord Goldsmith

Calling Goldsmith would be legitimate simply because he is both a politician and the man who took the decision to prosecute. You should argue that there is no proper separation of powers and consequently no fair judicial process. The Human Rights Act provides for a fair judicial process. There should be grounds to challenge the prosecutions on those grounds alone, i.e., that the judicial process is unfair.

More particularly, you can argue that he should be called as witness on the grounds that the prosecution has been undertaken for political not judicial reasons and without any consideration of the public interest.

There is public evidence that Goldsmith does allow his politics to colour his legal judgement. He changed his mind over the advice he gave to Blair on the legality of theinvading Iraq. On 7th March 2003 Goldsmith was doubtful about the legality of the war without a second UN resolution – his opinion has now been published. By 17th March 2003 he was telling Blair there was no problem without a second resolution. Goldsmith has never explained satisfactorily why he changed his mind in the space of ten days.

You should also argue (1) that the law itself is incompatible with democracy and (2) that there is a great public interest in not prosecuting, because the people being prosecuted represent a political party which is both acting within the democratic rules and has significant electoral support. You should further argue that the Human Rights Act protects both freedom of speech and democratic political activity.

2. Call Blair as a witness. The justification for this would be the collusion by Blair and Goldsmith over the Iraq advice and Goldsmith’s change of opinion. If you get permission to call Goldsmith it would be difficult for the court to refuse the calling of Blair.

3. Challenge what is meant by racially inciting. Get them to define it. Introduce examples of racial incitement by ethnic minorities. The Koran is a particularly good source of embarrassing quotes – I send you a selection by separate email.

4. Accumulate examples of ethnic abuse of whites which has not been prosecuted. If you know of whites who have made complaints to the police of racial incitement by blacks or Asians against whites which the police have failed to investigate or the attorney-general failed to prosecute, introduce these into evidence to show that Goldsmith or his predecessors are not even handed. I send you examples of complaints I have made which have not been investigated let alone prosecuted.

Calling people as witnesses

If you call someone as a witness you cannot cross-examine them. This puts considerable restrictions on what can be asked and the manner of the questioning (although a decent barrister should be able to get most of what he wants out of a witness even under those circumstances). Where a witness is reluctant – and the likes of Blair and Goldsmith would do everything they can to avoid being called – you can make application to the court for them to be treated as a hostile witness. If granted, this allows them to be cross-examined in all but name. Even allowing for the political pressure on the court, I doubt if any judge would fail to rule that they were hostile witnesses.

Your legal representation

Those labeled as racists generally have a problem with legal representation, both in getting it at all and in the nature of the representation when it is found. Barristers in particular have a habit of distancing them from their clients with words along the line of “My client is a vile racist but that does not mean he is guilty”. Consequently, it is vital that you give written instructions to both your solicitor and counsel forbidding such behaviour and laying out clearly how you want your defence conducted.

Remember, you instruct your lawyers, not they you. Once they have accepted your instructions they are bound to obey them r resign from the case. However, the courts look very unfavourably on counsel resign in criminal cases, so once you have got your instructions accepted there is a good chance they will be followed.

Lawyers generally will kick up about a client who wishes his  instructions to be followed – they are often the most arrogant of people who take the view that the conduct of the  case has damn all to do with the client. But you must face them down on this.

Representing yourself

In extremis, i.e., no one will take your instructions,  represent yourself. I would normally be very loth to  suggest this because there is a great deal of truth in the legal maxim that a man who has himself for a client has a fool for a client, but as it is a political trial it could be your best course of action.

If you do take this course, you should prepare yourself by producing schedules of questions. These should be primary and supplementary questions in this fashion:

Primary Question: Lord Goldsmith, did you discuss the case  with any member of the Labour Party before making your  decision to prosecute?

Secondary questions.

If Goldsmith answers YES ask: Which member or members did  you discuss it with?

If Goldsmith answers NO ask: Did you discuss the case with  any member of the Labour Party after making your decision to  prosecute?

In short, your schedules must anticipate as far as is possible the responses a witness will make.

Questions to witnesses should be “closed” wherever possible,  i.e., the questions should permit only a yes or no answer.

There are some questions which must be asked which will not allow a yes or no, for example, in the demonstration  questions above there would obviously come a point where you  would be forced to ask a question along the lines of “What  did you say to X”. If Goldsmith admitted that he had spoken  with a Labour Party member before he decided to prosecute,  you would probably need to ask such a question, although if  you are cross examining you could keep suggesting scenarios  to the witness, e.g., “Did you say Y to X?”.

My involvement with the Blairs

I am assuming that you have familiarised yourself with the  detailed case from my website.

I can say as a matter of objective fact that Blair is at the  least very wary of me. There is first the amazing fact that  Blair and his wife were willing to get involved in a criminal  prosecution involving me during the six most important weeks  of Blair’s life – the 1997 election campaign. The killer fact  for them is that they did not go to the police when I sent  them the letters but only after I circulated to the media the  letters and the replies I had received from their offices.

Second, is the remarkably experience I have had with the  police since 1997. I made various formal complaints against  the Blairs and the Mirror in 1997 and several since  due to  various attempts in internet  newsgroups  to incite  violence against me.  against me.

Normally such complaints would be dealt with by a detective  sergeant. To date I have dealt with a Det Chief Supt (head  of the Met’s Dept of Professional Standards, a very powerful copper indeed), a Scotland Yard Det Supt and two Det Chief  Inspectors. All came to my home when I requested it. That such senior officers have been assigned to my complaints  shows that the police and Blair are colluding when it comes  to dealing with me.

Consequently, if the authorities think you will be putting  me in the witness box, they will probably chicken out.

The best public document relating to me to wave at them is  the EDM put down by Sir Richard Body, viz:

On 10 November 1999, Sir Richard Body MP, put down this  Early Day Motion in the House of Commons:

That this House regrets that the Right honourable  Member for Sedgefield [Tony Blair] attempted to persuade the Metropolitan Police to bring criminal  charges against Robert Henderson, concerning the Right honourable Member’s complaints to the police  of an offence against the person, malicious letters and racial insult arising from letters  Robert Henderson had written to the Right  Honourable Member complaining about various  instances of publicly-reported racism involving the  Labour Party; and that, after the Crown Prosecution Service rejected the complaints of the Right  honourable Member and the Right honourable Member  failed to take any civil action against Robert  Henderson, Special Branch were employed to spy upon  Robert Henderson, notwithstanding that Robert  Henderson had been officially cleared of any  illegal action.

Yours sincerely,

Robert Henderson 4 7 2005

——————————————————————

To:                      Robert Henderson <philip@anywhere.demon.co.uk>

Subject:              Re: Suggested action you should take

From:                  BNP Chairman

Date:                   05 July 2005 13:31:35

Of course. Thanks – though I usually tell lawyers that I think Will Shakespeare had the best idea about how to deal with them, and generally they take it well as they know deep down that they’re parasites.

N

Why Jeremy Hunt’s claim of no bias is a nonsense

Robert Henderson

Jeremy Hunt’s defence against accusations of bias when judging the bid of the Murdoch family  to gain full control of BskyB  is simple: he says  that regardless of his own pro-Murdoch  views,   he behaved with absolute propriety and impartiality in his conduct of the matter, taking what he claims was independent advice throughout and always  acting upon it.

The problem for Hunt’s argument  is that he was in a quasi-judicial situation.  This means that he had to comply with the dictates of natural justice which applies  “equally to the decisions of administrative and domestic tribunals and of any authority exercising an administrative power that affects a person’s status, rights or liabilities. Any decision reached in contravention of natural justice is void as ultra vires . There are two principal rules. The first is the rule against bias (i.e. against departure from the standard of even-handed  justice required of those who occupy judicial office.) – nemo judex in causa sua ( or in proporia causa) (no man may be a judge in his own cause)This means that any decision,  however fair it may seem, is invalid if made by a person with any financial or other interest in the outcome  or any other known bias  that might have affected his judgement.  The second rule is  known as audi alteram partem (hear the other side). It states that a decision cannot stand unless the person directly affected by it is given a fair opportunity both to state his case and to know and answer the other side’s case.  (Oxford Dictionary of Law 1996 edition P261)

The bias rule means that not only must the person in the judicial or quasi-judicial position behave without bias, they must be seen as having no conflict of interest which could lead to a reasonable suspicion of bias. Like Caesar’s wife, Hunt needed to be above suspicion.  Clearly he was far from being that because  of (1) his severally expressed  desire to see  News International gain full control of BskyB , including  enthusiastic written support just before Cameron appointed  Hunt to replace Vince Cable as the minister responsible for making the decision on the News International bid,  (2) the incestuously chummy behaviour of his special advisor Adam Smith when dealing with News Corp  lobbyist Fred Michel and  (3) his own texts and emails including compromising ones with his political colleagues.

A month before Hunt replaced Cable as overseer of the BskyB bid,  he wrote to David Cameron asking for a meeting with Cameron and Cable to discuss the handling of the bid. In the note Hunt was concerned that referring the bid to  Ofcom might leave the Government  “on the wrong side of media policy” and  expressed the view that it would be  “totally wrong” for ministers to “cave in” to News Corp’s opponents. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/leveson-inquiry/9288966/Jeremy-Hunt-and-the-secret-BSkyB-memo-to-David-Cameron.html).  Sir Gus O’Donnell,   the  cabinet secretary at the time when  Hunt was given Cable’s job .  O’Donnell’s job  was  to decide whether Hunt was  qualified to be Cable’s replacement for the job of overseeing the News Corp’s bid for total control of BskyB.   This judgement included the question of bias.  O’Donnell made his judgement inn ignorance of  Hunt’s memo to Cameron because neither Hunt nor Cameron  disclosed it to O’Donnell.

Just before Hunt was given the job of handling the BskyB takeover bid he was effectively lobbying on News Corp’s’ behalf :

‘Hunt email to [Andy] Coulson, [then the  director of communications at No 10] timed at 4.10pm,  21 December 2011: “Could we chat about this. Am seriously worried Vince [Cable] will do real damage to coalition with his comments.”

Two minutes earlier, at 4.08pm, he [Hunt]  texted Osborne: “Cld we chat about Murdoch Sky bid am seriously worried we are going to screw this up. Jeremy.”

Almost immediately he fires off another text to the chancellor: “Just been called by James M. His lawyers are meeting now and saying it calls into question legitimacy of whole process from beginning ‘acute bias’ etc.”

Osborne responds to intimate that Hunt has got the job of overseeing the News Corp/Sky bid, texting him at 4.58pm: “I hope you like our solution “. ‘ (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/may/31/jeremy-hunt-george-osborne-bskyb-bid)

Hunt did this despite having been given legal advice that he should not try to influence the outcome of the BskyB bid (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/leveson-inquiry/9290934/Leveson-Inquiry-Jeremy-Hunt-tried-to-intervene-in-Vince-Cable-scrutiny-of-News-Corp-bid-for-BSkyB.html)

The extent of the contact between Hunt, the DCMS and Adam Smith and News Corps after Hunt was appointed to the position Cable had vacated  is extraordinary.   Hunt and DCMS officials exchanged  799 text messages with News Corp; Adam Smith 257 with Fred Michel of News Corp.  (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/leveson-inquiry/9287284/Leveson-Inquiry-DCMS-exchanged-799-texts-with-News-Corp-during-BskyB-bid.html)

The  nature and tone of the texts are as remarkable as there frequency. Here are few examples of Hunt’s:

“2011 20 Jan

Michel to Hunt

Following minuted meeting in DCMS with News Corp to discuss the bid:

Great to see you today, we should get little [names of children] together in the future to socialise. Nearly born the same day at the same place! Warm regards, Fred.

Hunt to Michel

Good to see you too. Hope you understand why we have to have the long process. Let’s meet up when this resolved.

Jan 21

Michel to Hunt

You were very impressive yesterday, and yes, let’s meet up when it’s all done. Warmest regards, Fred.

March 3

Michel to Hunt

Mr Hunt had announced he was accepting News Corp’s Undertakings in Lieu, which meant Sky News would become an independent company

 You were great at the Commons today. Hope all well, warm regards, Fred.

Hunt to Michel

Merci. Large drink tonight!  “

(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/leveson-inquiry/9287671/Leveson-Inquiry-the-texts-between-Jeremy-Hunt-and-Fred-Michel.html)

No judge would have failed to disqualify himself if he had had such contact with someone appearing before him, although no judge would have dreamt of having such contact with someone appearing before him.  Nor would any third party (in this case Adam Smith)  have been acting on behalf of a judge in a way guaranteed to compromise the ability of a  judge.

Whether Hunt behaved impartially in his consideration of the BskyB takeover bid is actually  irrelevant,  because the facts of his behaviour both before and after his appointment to adjudicate on the bid give ample ground for suspecting that he would be biased in his judgement.  Moreover, it is possible that someone who  appears to be biased would act unfairly in the opposite direction, that  is, treat  unfairly the person whom it was suspected he was biased towards  to allay claims of partiality.

There is also  the question of  whether those opposed to the BskyB bid had a meaningful opportunity to answer the  Murdoch case (the second primary rule of natural justice).  If Hunt accepted submissions from the opponents of  the Murdoch bid, and it would be extraordinary if he did not, those making the submissions would not be able to fully answer the other side’s case because they would not know the facts of what was happening between Hunt and his special advisor and  the Murdochs.

The fact that Hunt is trying to hang-on regardless of the mountain of evidence of inappropriate ministerial behaviour and David Cameron is desperately  attempting to protect him by refusing to refer Hunt’s behaviour to Sir Alex Allan, the independent adviser on the Ministerial Code tells you all you need to know about the Coalition, namely, that they have learnt nothing from the various scandals encompassing politicians in the past few years and believe that when shove comes to push that ministers can behave more  or less as they wish short of outright criminality  provided they retain the support of the Prime Minister.   Hunt’s behaviour should  have been referred to Allan because the Ministerial Code echoes the bias rule of natural justice , viz: :“ f. Ministers must ensure that no conflict arises, or appears to arise, between their public duties and their private interests” (http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/media/409215/ministerialcodemay2010.pdf).

Cameron’s reluctance to act over Hunt is plausibly linked to his own close connections with the main News Corp/News International players, especially Rebekah Brooks and his appointment of an ex-news international editor Andy Coulson as No 10 Communications chief, a man  being investigated over phone-hacking while the editor of the News of the World and  now charged with perjury over a separate matter relating to the trial and conviction of the erstwhile  Scottish SMP Tommy Sheriden. There is also the fact that Cameron made the decision to appoint Hunt despite knowing of Hunt’s  bias in favour of the News Corp bid when he appointed him.  To that can be added the approval of George Osborne for the appointment  as shown in the text quoted above from Osborne to Hunt in which Osborne describes the appoint of Hunt to replace Cable as “the solution” to Hunt’s worries about News Corp failing to gain full control of BskyB   (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/may/31/jeremy-hunt-george-osborne-bskyb-bid).

There is also evidence that 10 Downing Street aides had a good deal of contact with News Corp generally, viz: :

 “Two of David Cameron’s most senior and trusted advisors were having back door text chats with News Corp’s chief lobbyist at the height of the Milly Dowler scandal, it emerged tonight.

Gabby Bertin, the Prime Minister’s press secretary, exchanged numerous messages with Fred Michel in the days after true extent of phone hacking at the News of The World became apparent.

She also contacted the then chief executive of News International Rebekah Brooks to offer her support and was given early warning of the decision to close the News of the World.

At the same time Craig Oliver, David Cameron’s Director of Communications, was also in contact with Mr Michel and the pair met for dinner at a “discreet location” the day after the Dowler revelations came to light.

The text messages also show that there were a significant number of – up till now undisclosed – telephone conversations between Downing Street and News Corp as the extent of the scandal became apparent.”  (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/tv-radio/cameron-aides-cosy-chats-with-news-corp-7788308.html).

Cameron’s problem is that if Hunt goes he is also in the firing line because he has been too closely involved with both Hunt’s appointment and News Corp generally. .

It is nauseating to compare the ministerial misbehaviour  Cameron has tolerated  with his 2010  foreword to the Ministerial Code :

“Our new government has a particular and historic responsibility: to rebuild confidence in our political system. After the scandals of recent years, people have lost faith in politics and politicians. It is our duty to restore their trust. It is not enough  simply to make a difference. We must be different.

We have promised the people a coalition government united behind the key principles of freedom, fairness and responsibility. Every day of this government we  must make good on that promise, acting in a way that reflects these principles.

In everything we do – the policies we develop and how we implement them, the speeches we give, the meetings we hold  – we must remember that we are not masters but servants. Though the British people have been disappointed in their politicians, they still expect the highest standards of conduct. We must not let them down.

We must be different in how we think and how we behave. We must be different from what has gone before us. Careful with public money. Transparent about what we do and how we do it. Determined to act in the national interest, above improper influence. Mindful of our duty. Above all, grateful for our chance to change our country.

DAVID CAMERON (Ibid)”

Truly, Britain’s  leading politicians have no shame.